Sep

29

Computers in the Math Classroom

Filed Under Math 

Much of the past week I’ve been hunting around for ideas so our Grade 8 Math teacher. As part of the Manitoba government’s push to get more technology into the classroom, well, we’re looking for ways to do that. With some digging on my own, and a good bit of help from the folks at Classroom 2.0, here’s the week’s discoveries.

Google Sketchup: This is a great product. It is basically a user friendly version of Autocad that allows you to easily draw and manipulate 3D shapes. Apparently kids from a local high school did a presentation for their school board of what they’d like the school’s new gym to be like. They “walked” the board through the new gym on a virtual tour they’d created using Sketchup. This looks like a great tool to work with for various parts of geometry and is a natural fit with the government curriculum. We’re going to be trying this one out at our school as an enrichment activity.

Web Sudoku: The popular number puzzles are available on the Web. There’s a lot of ways to adjust just how hard your puzzle is and personalize it to your taste. This is a great site for those kids who habitually finish their Math assignments early. There’s millions of puzzles available, so you never have to hear, “I’m done. What do I do next?”

Math-Kitecture: This little site seems to be about creating scale floor plans of your current classroom, and later designing your dream class. It’s a simple enough concept, and probably not one you need a website for, but the site does do a very nice job of walking you through all the steps, basically creating your lesson plan for you.

Absurd Math: This is a series of story problems. You play a hero out to defeat the enemy, and, of course, you can’t get to the next stage without solving a math problem. Is that realistic? No. Yet this still might appeal to the upper elementary kids who like superhero comic books.

Future City Competition: This site hosts a competition intended to sharpen Math and Architecture skills by doing city design using the SimCity program. I haven’t looked at this one too carefully, but it’s a really intriguing idea.

And finally, Fantasy Sports Math. This site helps you form a fantasy sports league. This is a great way for the math teacher who’s a sports fan (sadly, not me) to sharpen all kinds of math skills as the kids keep track of their favorite players and teams.

Math, I’m learning, doesn’t have to be boring.

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